HVVA NEWSLETTER, February 2005
(Click on graphics/photos for larger view)
HVVA Newsletters


FROM THE JOURNAL:
Saturday, January 29 Frank White, Chairman of the Clinton Historic Commission, in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, had gotten in touch with HVVA through our Three Rivers web site. The town has bought the Voght Farm to build a school on. The large property has a two story stone bank house built originally in the 1750's, also an early 19th century 4-bay barn and other outbuildings. The town wanted to tear all the buildings down to build a new school, despite the fact that the buildings are structurally sound and they have plenty of room for both a school and an historic site, so the. State has put a stop demolition work order on their project while a case for the buildings historic importance is being collected.

I met with Carla Cielo from Ringoes and Lawrence LaFevre from Milford, these HVVA members had come early to measure and document the barn. They have spent a number of years doing this for the nearby township of Holland which also has a rich mixture of architectural styles and unique structural solutions being near the Delaware River in an area that incorporates English, Dutch and German elements in its vernacular architecture. We were given a tour of the Voght House by Adam Wengryn, architectural historian with Restoration Technologies, and the architect Michael Margulies AlA, who are writing up the report.


REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Dr. Haio Zimmermann, from Wilhelmshaven in Germany has sent us the picture above showing a house being moved down a New York City street (*).Dr. Zimmermann has a wide interest in material culture and has written on the subjects of barns and houses, hay barracks and several on moving buildings.

"Now I am asked to give two papers and present one publication more about that matter," Haio writes, "and because I don't want to repeat always what I already wrote, I search for more materiaL"

John Stevens, HVVA's architectural historian from Long Island, has submitted the following article from
Sketch of the Civil Engineering of North America.
by David Stevenson (1815-1886),
published in London in 1838.

The author's life is recounted in The Lighthouse Stevensons.

"His book contains excellent material on American steamboats and railroads." John Stevens wrote. "When I was at Old Bethpage Village Restoration, I had plenty of experience with moving buildings. We did it about every way it could be done, from bringing in complete buildings, without roofs, in sections and in parts. It was interesting seeing how the movers dealt with the particular problems that each building entailed."

Dr. W. Haio Zimmermann'
Niedersechsisches institute fur historische Kustenforschung
Postfach 2062, 26360 Wilhelmshaven
GERMANY


February 2005 Newsletter, Part Two

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